Life on the Northern Frontier
Life on the Northern Frontier
Bioarchaeological Reconstructions of Eleventh-Century Households in North Iceland
This chapter discusses the bioarchaeological evidence for biological stress in two eleventh-century cemetery populations from Northern Iceland. Iceland was initially settled in ninth century CE, and its marginal location and challenging sub-arctic climatic conditions provided the first generations of settlers with a host of environmental and social challenges. The results of our analysis point to a population that endured periodic hardships as evidenced by high rate of infant death and the presence of various stress markers in the skeletal material. Conversely, the evidence also points to a people successfully counteracting the negative aspects of their physical environment by introducing various social and cultural buffering mechanisms to ensure their survival.
Keywords: Bioarchaeology, Iceland, Infant death, Stress markers, Frontier
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